


Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

by time_transfixed



Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, i guess?, it's very short, nothing too bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/time_transfixed/pseuds/time_transfixed
Summary: The Disguiser is anartist.





	Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Human beauty is _glorious_ , the Disguiser thinks faintly. 

They’ll lift the Mayor’s reassuring demeanor and wear the Lookout’s laugh lines; the dead live on in their face, in their ever-growing patchwork of masks and stitched-together skin. They keep their memory alive for just a while longer, remind the living of what they’ve lost, even though most of them have long since been buried six feet under. 

The rest of the Mafia don't appreciate _art_ , beauty is an art, and what’s the point of playing second best to others in the town, when you could borrow their makeup and their accessories and their smiles?

Sometimes they don’t even bother with knives or the careful removal of skin (like peeling a potato or a particularly soft fruit), tearing the faces off their victims outright. There’s always a part of the face that’s usable, no matter how plain or unattractive the whole may be. The Mafioso turns away in disgust, telling them he’ll wait outside (it’s not like he was in much of a position to comment, the Disguiser thinks snidely). It makes the Disguiser so angry, how these people desecrate this art-form in their ignorance, having such beautiful faces without ever doing anything with them. 

They’re useless anyway, rotting away in the ground. The Disguiser is making good use of available resources. Reduce, reuse, recycle. 

Once they find the Witch’s eyes so captivating, color-changing, psychedelic (how had she done such a thing?) that they dig their fingers into eye sockets and wrench them out. It gets blood all over the shiny copper badge they had stolen off the Sheriff and the clinical white coat of the Doctor. 

The rest of her face is ruined, but the Disguiser can’t bring themself to care; there’s nothing too noteworthy about her dirty blond hair and her thin face for them to truly regret it. 

The jar with the preserved eyes sits in their bedroom; their vibrant color and life-like nature still the same as ever. The Disguiser regularly stares absent-mindedly at their depths, wondering what manner of witchcraft managed to create such a unique combination of color. 

Sometimes the Janitor comes along with them too, though hers is a science, a cold and calculated dose of chemicals that leaves no room for art. “That’s disgusting,” they tell her, looking at sizzling flesh and pearly white bones, the half melted face of the Escort. “ruining such a pretty face.” 

“That’s my job,” The Janitor says sharply, evidently holding back her own remarks about the Disguiser’s hobbies. 

The smirk that drags across their face is stolen from the local Jailor, strangely surreal in the blurred reflection of the half open window, as the Disguiser paints red over their lips and dabs on eyeshadow and blush, obscuring the Veteran’s tired eyes and the Consigliere’s freckles. 

“How does it feel?” the Janitor asks, watching them pull on a new layer of skin, shaking it out like an old carpet and picking out some of the entrails. The Disguiser slips what remains of the Escort on like a well-loved coat, preening as they stitch it together with the patchwork quilt of their other faces, other victims. 

“It feels like I’m beautiful.” 

The Janitor is a friend, sometimes, when the Disguiser is content to leave their faces smooth and unchanged. People don’t like when you change faces too often, they find, it unsettles them, especially when the long dead Arsonist’s harsh barking laugh suddenly makes an appearance mid-conversation. 

The two of them had said that it would be just a brief thing, something that wouldn’t mean anything, but when the Vigilante dies and the Janitor returns from the Retributionist’s house face stone cold, the Disguiser smiles the Retributionist’s soft smile and slides away the Executioner’s manic grin. A freak wants company, and it’s not like they mind pretending to be someone else in the process. It’s all they’ve ever done. 

The Blackmailer’s hanged, and the Forger screams bloody murder. “How dare you,” she says, her throat raw and hoarse from crying, pulling her closed fist back, “How dare you use his face, how dare you think you have any _right_ to--to mock him. We haven’t even had a funeral yet--you sick _freak_ stealing his skin.” 

The Disguiser touches their broken nose gingerly, staring blankly at the Forger. She seems to sag, her puffy and red eyes suddenly thrown into sharp focus as she slips out of the room. They don’t see it like that, oh no, they mourn the Blackmailer all the same, but that doesn’t mean they’ll let it go to all go to _waste._

Sighing, they glance at the small hand held mirror they had stolen off the Escort’s corpse. The seams of the Blackmailer’s piercing gaze are fraying at the edges. A shoddy job, then, already half-ruined by the Forger. They’d been sloppy when they’d sewn the Blackmailer’s face in, too hasty to add a new part to their collection.

That night they kill the Spy. The Disguiser tears out sharp acrylic nails and perfect mascara and replaces them with sharp eyes and sharp ears and ink-stained fingers.

They would’ve preferred to keep the Escort’s beauty for a little while longer, but such is the nature of this delicate art form; it comes and goes far too quickly, human skin not being made to be worn for so long. Beauty is ephemeral, fleeting, and the Disguiser is stuck in a constant cycle of preserving it with a needle and thread.

**Author's Note:**

> writing an actual functional member of the Mafia? nah.


End file.
